I always know when my lupus is really flaring up as I have terrible dreams.

I couldn't call them nightmares but they are totallly irrational and paranoid such as all my family dying and other awful things happening, yet they always seem so real and I wake up in a terrible state with a temperature, sweating and nausea.

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OOh - interesting! I was attributing the bad dreams to the tramadol which I take if I am flaring up - but maybe it is the flare itself rather than the drug? Hmm, but then I'd have to get to sleep without it in a flare to test it

I call them emotional dreams to describe them - ones that make you feel that you are really there and involved and scared.

Interesting to know it may be connected to a flare . . . I too have dreams in a flare - I would describe them as emotional and vivid. I wake up sweating and wondering if that what I have dreamt is real for a few moments.

I've been having weird dreams too and I know I'm flaring but not sure if it's a lupus flare or Sjogrens or maybe both?? I woke up at 4am this morning boiling hot and feeling crap! I'll have to make a note of this and look out for the possibility that when I have strange dreams then I might be flaring thanks for sharing

I used to have increasingly bad dreams in the years before I was diagnosed with SLE and have long thought there could be a link between dream quality or intensity and health, especially fatigue.

I have recently been looking into some new theories that too much dreaming at night can cause health problems such as depression and immune related conditions. Seemed to make a lot of sense and the implications for treatment are huge. I think this should be taken seriously as it could result in the treatment for many immune related disorders being much easier, cheaper, and using fewer drugs.

I personally would love to be involved in related research and also to be treated using the proposed methods such as specific types of counselling and behavioural therapies.

i have not as yet been diagnosed....with sle, i too have been havin very vivid dreams and sweats during the night , disturbing sleep. n i am havin joint paints at the moment...fatigue and ulcers and few other symptoms, am wonderin if worth pointin out to my gp, as i put it down to tramadol!!

I have been diagnosed for 24 years, and, symptoms show I have had lupus since a child. Unlike most of you people, i am allergic to all meds, however, still have constant nightmares and many other sleep disturbances.....fighting, talking coherently and uncoherently, laughing and the scariest apparently, sitting up eyes open and talking coherently...did this 2 nights ago, and argued I was awake, it was only when I said I was going to the office in my car, he twigged I was asleep...its quite scarey!!!!

Hi--am a little late to this post. Have never made the connection : bad dreams and lupus flare. That's something to think about. Hopefully you aren't having the disturbing dream now. It takes me hours to shake them off.